Camcorders

Camcorders

A camcorder (video camera recorder) is an electronic device that combines a video camera and a video recorder into one unit. Equipment manufacturers do not seem to have strict guidelines for the term usage. Marketing materials may present a video recording device as a camcorder, but the delivery package would identify content as video camera recorder. In order to differentiate a camcorder from other devices that are capable of recording video, like cell phones and compact digital cameras, a camcorder is generally identified as a portable, self-contained device having video capture and recording as its primary function. The earliest camcorders employed analog recording onto videotape. Digital recording has now become the norm, but tape remained the primary recording medium, with tape only being gradually replaced with other storage media including optical disks, hard disk drives and flash memory. All tape-based camcorders use removable media in form of video cassettes. Camcorders that do not use magnetic tape are often called tapeless camcorders and may use optical discs (removable), solid-state flash memory (removable or built-in) or a hard disk drive (removable or built-in). Camcorders that permit using more than one type of medium, like built-in hard disk drive and memory card, are often called hybrid camcorders.